My blog has garnered quite a bit of attention in recent months and folks have been overly kind in their comments. The fact that people take the time to pay me a compliment or thank me is awesome. It really drives me to try to put more effort into every single post. I've had some great comments since starting the blog, but I have to share this letter with you. It absolutely made my day! It's also a testament to how much impact a blog can have. Before this note, I never even knew that Mitch was a reader… check out his note:
Douglas,
I'm a long-time reader and subscriber of your blog. I wanted to shoot an e-mail over to you to let you know what I'm up to.
Myself and a friend, both undergrad students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, have just launched a new online customer support company. We used lots of the teachings from your blog in developing this new company of ours.
Our company is called ClixConnect and offers an extremely innovative service for providing online customer support. What we do is basically offer outsourced live-chat service for peoples' websites (using the little live-chat buttons you see on websites). Website owners can respond to chat inquiries when they're are available, and when they're not available, someone from our call center will respond to inquiries on their behalf, 24/7/365.
That's half the innovation. The hugely innovative component of ClixConnect is that we also have a new technology in our software which enables automated chat recommendations for customers, based upon the product they are viewing. So say someone is looking at a red t-shirt on a website, an automated chat window can appear recommending a blue pair of pants to them.
We spent about 6 months planning this, and worked with people in Canada, the US, Romania and Pakistan to launch it.
I just wanted to let you know that the insights on Martech Zone have really helped us get to where we are today, and we sincerely appreciate it.
Thanks again Douglas!
Mitch Cohen
Mitchell Cohen
McGill University BCom 2008
I'm truly flattered! What an amazing letter. I can't tell you how much reading that note meant to me. Best of luck with Clixconnect, Mitch! I'm going to check out your application and will continue to strive to bring you content that helps!
That is very cool, especially coming from a student. 18 months ago one of my employees left for Graduate School in Europe. He visited 4 weeks ago and told me that the PR and strategic business methodologies I had shared with him on the job here, had given him a powerful, competitive advantage among his peers. At the time, he had no idea.
I was deeply moved because he’s a good guy and he will do many great things in his life.
I am sure there are many others out there like Mitch who have been empowered by your work.
Thanks Neil… comments and letters like this are definitely more inspiring than any bonus. It really felt good to read this.
Much of my blog is built on comments, so I believe it’s a note that we can all feel good about!
The interaction I get from receiving comments is the most rewarding part of writing my blog, and it helps me strive towards better and better content.
It’s a great story Doug, and the product they have come up with is a fantastic idea, I may even think about using it in the future.
I have certainly used many of your recommendations on my blog and am now close to 200 readers (after only a couple of months) on feedburner, and thats partly due to you.
Keep up the good work,
Nick
Thanks Nick!
I know that made you feel wonderful! Comments like that always make you feel special.
I have a high amount of lurkers on my blog many of them send me email from time to time and occasionally they come out and
“speak” at times their comments have a greater impact on me than those from my regular readers simply because it was completely unexpected. 🙂
I just discovered your website about twenty minutes ago. I’ve read through quite a few of your posts already and I’ve bookmarked/linked to you so I can come back when I have more time.
I’ve been seriously thinking about taking my blog to the next level and information from websites, such as yours, are definitely going to aid me in turning my dreams into a reality.
I’ve been blogging for over two years however, my goals, over the past few months are changing.
Thanks Vegan Momma! I’ll be checking out your site as well. I’m not a Vegan, but I have incredible respect for the dedication it takes. And of course you’re a Mom, toughest job around! I’m a single Dad so I try (and fail) to wear both hats.
Let me know if I can help you with anything!
Thanks Douglas,
I’ll definitely be asking questions. At this point I don’t know what to ask! Marketing, for my blog, is still very new to me. I listening, reading, and learning.
I’m a single mom and yes I know what you mean about trying to wear both hats. 🙂